Defiant Wenger goes gunning for United

Arsenal’s manager claims repeatedly that his side are superior to the rest. Manchester United will have other ideas today

There is a wall-sized photograph at Arsenal's training ground of The Invincibles of 2003-04. Most of the players in the picture have departed the club and time has moved on, but Arsène Wenger is caught in freeze-frame. For him, it is still the case that Arsenal are never beaten. They can lose games but it is impossible for them to suffer defeat.

"If you lose against a team who you feel are better than you, then fair enough, but that's not the impression we got after these two matches," he said, rejecting the notion that Champions League elimination by Liverpool was any kind of tangible reverse.

It was not the first time in recent months that Wenger has declined to accept being vanquished. He is a postmodernist when it comes to football results: what a scoreline appears to say is not necessarily what it means, at least when it comes